Political, Social, and Religious Ravings from a Texas Conservative

The Chauncey Gardiner Defense

Imagine you the top dog of a multi-billion dollar company that suddenly goes bankrupt. It’s happened before… Ken Lay of Enron, Bernard Ebbers of WorldCom. Both deceived their stock holders, their employees, everybody and led their companies over a cliff. Ebbers went to prison. Lay was headed there before his death.

Now imagine not only bankrupting your multi-billion dollar company, but also being at the helm when money was illegally transferring out of private accounts to shore up your company accounts. Then imagine that when the smoke clears over a billion (that’s with a B) dollars can’t be accounted for.

Obama with Jon Corzine

If you’re former leftist Governor and Senator Jon Corzine with connections you just resign, graciously decline a 12 million dollar bonus and say “Whoopsy! I don’t really know what happened there…”

That’s exactly where we find ourselves after today’s (12/9/11) hearings before Congress.

Where is the media coverage of this? It’s nowhere near the Enron coverage. Once again we have the double standard. Can you imagine the media coverage and outrage had this been an ex-Republican at the helm?

Yes, it’s still a little early in the process and hopefully investigations will finally expose the culprits; but I just can’t help but notice the complacency right now. Ken Lay tried to use the Chauncey Gardiner defense (I was clueless about what was going on) and nobody bought it for a minute. Why is it working for Jon Corzine?

Note: Chauncey Gardiner (Chance the Gardener) was a character in the movie Being There played by the late Peter Sellers. In the movie Chance/Chauncey was a mentally retarded “gardener” thrust out into the world. By sheer chance he stumbles into the realm of the politically connected where powerful people mistake his simple demeanor and words as wisdom and genius. Chance/Chauncey doesn’t have the metal faculty to understand anything that is going on, but by the end of the movie he is about to be nominated for President.

One Response

The media coverage of this is in the same place as their coverage of Romney’s business results, when leading a company that showed a lovely profit by gutting others and laying people off, not by providing a valued service or product.